


Scire; Scintilla

by hitchhikingbabeh



Category: K-pop, NCT (Band), Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:27:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,861
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hitchhikingbabeh/pseuds/hitchhikingbabeh
Summary: You know how it goes in these types of places. A big city infested with demons that aren't quite demons and an army of people fighting to keep the balance between good and evil. What else is a young vampire and a young huntress supposed to do besides wreak some havoc?





	Scire; Scintilla

This professor has the most inconvenient office hours. Fridays from five to seven? Really?

Jung Yuno walks over to the desk wherein the Film Music professor has his laptop and accommodates himself, hopping a few times to confirm the cushion of the swiveling armchair he’s sat on.

Oh, the professor? He’s playing Brawl Stars across from Yuno in one of the chairs opposite the desk.

Yuno cracks his knuckles and goes to the laptop, easily typing in the password. He’s welcomed by a playlist of a bunch of .avi videos, which is exactly what he needed to find to guarantee the rest of the semester is as fun as possible.

“Holy shit, thirty-seven shorts?” he mutters once he eyes through the titles to see if any one of them catch his fancy, and he finds that really, all of them are named something either horribly obvious or horribly obscure.

Except that one. Flâneurs.

He double clicks that one first, immediately greeted by a gradient of sepia and sky blue and a pair of heeled boots.

A slow dolly upward reveals a girl, Parisian as can possibly be (and Yuno would know one when he saw one). Hair perfectly messed up by the winds that the narrow streets of Montmartre carry, cherry red lips and elongated, darkened eyelashes and a stride of purpose, of pride.

And then she looks with careless eyes at someone sitting at a café nearby, looking exactly what the stereotype of the French would. And the point of view shifts, to horizontal black and white stripes and big sunglasses, of a croissant and a cup of dark coffee, of the morning paper translated to a different language.

Though the cherry red lips remain, everything else feels different.

This time Yuno’s carried through the city in ballerina shoes, cobblestone under the heels on the path through the Quartier Latin, and he can almost smell the mixture of summer and fresh bread and dust that permeates those streets that he rarely crossed but can never, ever forget and he’s smitten.

Smitten still when the second flâneur looks over at the third, the typical portrait of a tourist. Pressed shirts and a camera hanging from a sunkissed neck, hair mussed and tied messily. Then he hears the click, click, click of that camera, sees the laughter that floods from this flâneur’s lips every time they look up or down from an unforgettable sight and Paris has so many to offer, and he’s taken to the Tour Eiffel and his mind immediately flashes back to the last time his quickened footsteps ascended the stairs to the first level of it as he watches the flâneur look up from the streets—

And then his eyes are drawn to one person. In a sea of people looking up, there is one person looking down.

Buried into a sketchbook, hands dirty from the charcoal you hold in your hands but you don’t care because no other medium will let you show the Tower’s beauty at its best. Your eyes, despite being downcast, are visibly sparkling. You’re done with your sketch and it is stunning, but Yuno only gets to see a fraction of it before you shut the sketchbook and get up to walk off.

And he follows your steps as you walk through the Pont des Arts, watches water glisten against a setting sun on the river Seine and walk off because there’s so much more to see when Paris is bathed in shades of ruby. And he’s dying to see more, more of his favourite spots in the city as you walk him through nondescript streets that are still so much Paris, up the stairs to a small establishment, and he’s taking a trip down your white t-shirt and your black denim and your flat boots—and when he’s taken back up, everything changes.

Instead of warm light, he gets cool; instead of taupe painted walls, he sees concrete and white. And he doesn’t expect it at all, when he’s taken up to the curve of your shoulder, down to your arm where he finally understands everything and smiles because fuck, what a beautiful thing.

The sights he’s seen and the people he’s met are all flâneurs, made not of flesh and blood but still living in the ink that a gloved hand is marking your smooth skin with. And you rise, even more beautiful than you were before, and he gets all of Paris on the landscape of your skin like the city is you and you are the city.

The credits roll before Yuno is ready, and he immediately memorises the name that is attached to the direction. His eyes widen when he sees the name again, this time attached to the last of the flâneurs.

He can’t wait to meet you.

“I swear to all things good if you throw one more dart I will—”

There’s buzzing dangerously close to your left ear and you know he’s done it again, the bastard. He cackles triumphantly and you look to the board to see he’s hit a bullseye and God, you’d have killed Kim Doyoung if he wasn’t so highly ranked or hadn’t taught you everything you know about this fucking world. 

“You’ll what, little cygnet?”

“Don’t call me that,” you snap instantly, returning to your Unconventional Theatre and Performance homework.

Doyoung throws another dart and you watch from the corner of your eyes as he takes another swig of his coffee, and since it’s nearly 3AM you know he’s up for another shift at work soon.

“You haven’t been sleeping lately,” you add, not even bothering to look up at the raven-haired young man as you speak.

“Are you worried?”

“Annoyed. Your aura is distracting and I can’t focus on my work,” this time you do spare him a glance, and you know he sees in you something more than your disdain at his ability to faze you. Maybe he sees a little concern, somewhere in the depths of your cloudy heart.

Everyone at the Institute knows you’re his favourite protégé.

“You should really go out more often,” he sighs before getting up, tidying his white button-up and grabbing his leather jacket, “you should be co-working with a friend at the dorms, not in this hell hole with us miscreants.”

“It’s fine.” You’re more comfortable here, at the Observatory, than you are in your dorm room. Than you are anywhere, really. 

“Suit yourself,” the young man shrugs in the end, standing up because he really does need to leave, “and go to sleep. Don’t you have class at 8AM?”

“10AM. You go to sleep.”

“I have to work to pay our bills.”

“Okay, bye, honey. Have a good day at work.”

You don’t look up but you know he’s smiling as he walks off, and you can’t help but smile yourself after you hear the doors of the study close behind him.

Then you remember that you have that stupid final project for Short Subject with the Composing majors and your smile turns into a long sigh.

What you would give to be a regular ass college student and not a fucked up one. 

 

Yuno doesn’t like to sleep. It takes away too much precious time he could spend doing other things. Sometimes good stuff, like entertaining banter at the loft with his roommate or at the college radio booths with Park Chanyeol. Or at feedings. He likes to feed in the middle of the night the most, he’s got a weird superstition that it’s more satiating than when the sun is out. Other times, his endeavours are less productive.

Like right now. He’s lying on his back on the living room couch, cozy and roomy and very, very comfortable. It smells like myrrh and like home and he can’t help but smile whenever he lies down here and Chet Baker and Paul Desmond are playing from his turntable (a bargain he snatched in the 40s in New York). Yuno made the terrible mistake of downing five shots at one of Taeil’s bars tonight and he can’t feel the tips of his fingers and it makes his blood rush. Quite literally.

He’s so thirsty he could burst into confetti.

So maybe he reconsiders sleep. Maybe he could get some shut-eye. The back of his throat still tastes like an odd mixture of liquor and his favourite toothpaste and it distracts him and causes his mind to wander, to how not annoying it was at the bar for once, how he has to be a real boy tomorrow and show up for class, how he’s—

Oh, the film student. He’s meant to meet his (self) assigned partner tomorrow.

And Jung Yuno’s eyes fly open. In seconds he’s got his favourite pencil out, and fresh music sheets on his favourite working desk, lit by his favourite lamp. He shuts off the music he’d had going on and smiles down at the empty lines like a boy with a new toy.

He always did like being prepared.

  
You pride yourself on your academic excellence. Having been made aware of the cost of education and how much of a privilege it is, you really do try to only shoot for classes that will further you in your career, and to be smart about the times you pick to ensure that you never have to miss a single moment of the greatest investment you and the people who have loved and raised you have made on you. Three years into your degree and you’ve only ever missed class twice. 

And you might strike off a third time today.

Your alarm didn’t go off, you woke up by mere chance and had a total fifteen minutes to brush your teeth, hop in the shower and do something about your fantastic bed head before you had to literally run to the Performance Arts building.

You make it to the classroom twelve minutes late. And as soon as you walk in, it’s like the whole world has changed. The classroom is crowded with people, some that you’ve come across around campus and around the city and others that you’ve never seen before. Your professor looks delighted, talking to another one that you suppose teaches the film scoring class and they both look giddy about this session.

You’ll find out later on in the year that the whole thing only happened because the two professors are newlyweds.

The seat you usually take is occupied, and since you’re late and missed the introductions you feel like a fish out of water.

And then someone taps you on the shoulder and calls your name.

You look over and see a face you can only describe as being an absolute mirage. Dark eyes, golden-brown hair and skin so fair that you can see veins web up his neck and why are you looking at the crook of his neck and down the curve of his shoulder wow, his chest is quite wide. Okay.

“We called out for you earlier. I’m your partner. Jung Yuno.”

“O-okay,” you slap yourself mentally for stammering but you don’t get why you do. Something about his aura is so strange, it feels familiar but he can’t be—

“I’m sure you’re lovely, but you don’t have to do much for our project. I saw your short and decided it had to be mine. I have a draft for the score, and you’ll read it and think it’s fantastic. You won’t ask to hear demos of it, and you won’t pester me to adjust anything. You’ll credit me as Composer and as Associate Producer because I’m really turning your 8 ½ into a 10 and you’ll be really grateful once you do listen to the final cut.”

You blink at him six times exactly. “What?”

Yuno’s dimpled grin is replaced by a look of absolute perplexion, and he looks you harder in the eyes to reaffirm his words.

This aura. You know it. But this can’t be. It can’t be.

“D-did you just try to compel me?”

“Did I just what?” Yuno’s response is timely, natural, even though the blood in his body is rushing and he feels like he was just struck by lightning.

His words throw you off, make you narrow your eyes at him. He seems to really not know what you’re on about but there’s something in his aura… that ultraviolet haloing the white and gold around him…

You’re quiet as you see his eyes change, to something caught between surprise and bewilderment, but he doesn’t move his gaze from your own and it’s easy to tell that he might think you’re a bit of a lunatic right now. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.

Maybe.

“I don’t like being told what to do,” you say in the end, crossing your arms over your chest.

Yuno quickly tries to think up some clever, impossibly charming thing to respond with, but he finds he doesn’t need to do any of that. “My score might change your mind about that,” he chooses to say instead, all arrogance and absolutely no bullshit, “and about other things, too.”

You actually scoff. “You’ve written it already?”

“Yes.”

Your eyes widen at his dark ones, impressed and just the slightest bit intimidated. “Why? I mean— how?”

“I told you. I watched your short film and it inspired me. That’s not something that happens very often,” it’s obvious from how he says it that he’s nearly always inspired by his own clout. “Your work is excellent,” he goes on, “combining it with mine will make it sublime.”

“Are you always this full of yourself?” 

“Nearly always,” he smiles and he extends a hand for you to shake and you do it more out of courtesy and curiosity than anything else. Well, maybe his dimples are helping a little. 

It’s blatant now, what he is. You try to fish for malice, ulterior motives and ill intentions and you find nothing. So maybe you don’t have to react how you’ve been taught to.

Not demons. Just cursed.

“Something about you is off,” you say honestly, and Yuno bursts out laughing.

“I imagine people said the same of Salvador Dalí and Erik Satie,” he responds, right on time, and you’re amused and intrigued because this man is probably dangerous, but you decide right there and then that you’re going to let this play out however it needs to before you make any kind of judgment. You’ve never been the type to strike first, anyway. 

For the moment, you avert your eyes from his to the binder in his arm. “So, have you got some sheet music for me? A demo? A link to your Soundcloud?”

Yuno chuckles and pulls out what you expected - sheet music. “I’ve got this and the small screening room booked for the next hour.”

He’s surprised to see your eyes widen and your eyebrows arch.

“You’re quite diligent.”

“I like to be thorough.”

“Clearly,” you’re getting more curious, smiling as you consider that he might be as thorough about every aspect of his life as you are. How curious. You’re so tempted to follow that path of breadcrumbs of curious that you know lead to the dark, haunting woods of the unknown.

But you don’t care.

“Lead the way.”

 

Your university is quite well-known for its art programmes, especially in music and visual media arts. You’ve got an enviable campus and a lot of notable alumni to brag about, currently working in all fields of entertainment and performance.

Nearly everyone at the Institute had a collective heart attack when you declared you’d be attending the very place to pursue a degree in film in favour of starting an apprenticeship with the Professor once you graduated high school. It was the exact opposite of what they expected, they’d hoped you wouldn’t go to university at all. That you’d not waste time and start training immediately to join the ranks.

But you’ve always preferred going against the grain. And you’re also an absolute brat. So you insisted on your degree, argued with the Professor for a whole hour with your acceptance letter in hand, and then Doyoung brought cake after dinner. And that was that.

In another life, you were meant to be his right hand. Because he’s the most trustworthy demon hunter alive.

But now, in this life, you watch Jung Yuno’s aura radiate off of him and check off items on your list of factors of the other-worldly kind. His aura is eerily similar to another one you know, but you’re too cautious to confront him about it directly. You need more time to study him, more time to confirm whether or not he’s dangerous.

He’s definitely something.

He leads you both to the screening room you’re confined to every Thursday at 6PM for your history of film screenings, and when you step in, you see that the place is set up for a showing.

You don’t bother to ask how he managed all this, though you’re sure he’s about to tell you.

“It wasn’t all that hard,” ah, there it is, “it was just a matter of good manners and better time management.” He’s giving his back to you, but you can hear the smile in his voice and you want to resent him for it but you can’t.

“Did you add SFX?” you decide to ask instead, deciding that as long as you stick to the relevant, you won’t want to blow his head off. “I don’t know if you consider that your department or if I should get someone else to help me with it.”

“I’m perfectly happy with the SFX you have,” Yuno’s tone always adjusts itself to either work or play and right now it’s tilting towards work, “my plan from the start was to write the music specifically fitted to your SFX. Few things ever move me, but— ”

“My extended rambles about Paris did?”

“No.” The answer is flat, ruthless. And something in your chest stings. A second passes and Yuno takes a breath before speaking again.

“Your view of Paris moved me. It showed me how you see the world, not just the over-glorified European city aspect we’re so tired of seeing in modern media. I envy the way your eyes see. How your eyes see the world that surrounds you. I understand your vision — but that envy, knowing I don’t have your vision, made me feel like I haven’t in ages. I actually wanted to create something that matched it and didn’t overthrow it, something that worked in perfect harmony with it and didn’t— ” he stops abruptly like he just caught himself saying too much and you think you see his ears turn red. There’s something very particular about his voice, it reminds you of the feeling of velvet under your fingertips, like thick smoke or an alto sax and it manages to distract you a little from the passion in his words, but not too much.

You’re stunned, mostly unsure of what to say or do. “Um… thank you?”

“How long did you live in Paris?”

How could he tell that you had?

Oh, right— 

“Three years,” you tell him, stunned again, but then you register the look in his face and feel that you know why he could tell. “You?”

He actually smiles. “Too long.”

You nod, wanting to ask more questions, but hesitating because you want to remain cautious. Yuno clears his throat and gestures to the back of the room, where a small grand piano sits by the projector screen.

How he got that in here is absolutely beyond you, so you don’t bother to ask about that, either.

You watch and follow behind him as he approaches the piano, and you choose to stay as close to the centre of the room as you can, to hear him as clearly as possible and also see the film as best you can. You eye him again as his hands land over the ebony and ivory keys, and you watch him still as he accommodates sheet music in its place, until he meets your eyes and smiles. “You ready to get your mind blown?”

You almost laugh. “Sure?”

“Sicheng!” Yuno calls out, and you look over your shoulder and up at the projection room to see a cute, brown-haired boy shuffle around. He waves and smiles at you both and shoots you a thumbs up and you return your eyes to the screen, now displaying the title screen of your short.

And you’re suddenly very, very nervous.

The screen goes black and a very familiar visual unfolds before you.

Except, of course, it has a new element to it now.

Yuno watches you, mostly. He knows this composition like the back of his hand, it’s been stuck in his head since he finished writing it. The sheet music is just there as a formality, and for effect. And boy, is the look on your face a sight. Your expression is usually tightly controlled, he’s noticed. You always do everything you can to look like you’ve got everything around you under control. So he truly, truly enjoys watching the muscles of your face relax, your jaw unclench, the look in your eyes soften.

You even move to take a seat. And that is high praise, he knows.

If you had to describe the music he’s playing with words, you’d call this score a journey. A standalone adventure happening in absolute harmony yet parallel to the one happening on screen. He’s captured the essence of French music, the classic sound of Paris between the 1920s and the 1960s, and then it transforms as you’re taken through Montmartre, with an added depth you’d expect out of the pipe organs of Notre Dame and it is absolutely beautiful. Then it morphs again when you’re at the Quartier Latin, and the music becomes as telling of where you are as the visuals are and how the fuck did this guy manage to leave you in awe of your own work when an hour ago you thought it was just slightly above average?

By the time you reach the Eiffel Tower, your head feels fuzzy; you’re reeling because you’re enchanted.

The music has a final change at the reveal, slows down in tempo and acquires weight, warmth, and for lack of a better word, meaning. Yuno keeps playing even through the credits, and only stops when the projector displays the title screen of the film once again.

For the first two minutes, you only stare at the screen. Then you turn to stare at him, for about the same amount of time. He’s not uncomfortable at all, he even chuckles and nods and knots his hands over his lap and looks you in the eyes proudly, sincerely. 

“I know,” he smiles wider, and you no longer mind how obnoxious he sounds, because he knows that now, you know he really is that good at his craft. Under any other circumstance, you’d want to slap the smugness right off his face, but… you’re smitten, you’re so full of pride and… you’re grateful. With a racing heart and burning skin, you’re grateful.

“Why?”

Your question surprises him, and his expression reflects it. But then another smile blooms from beneath the perplexion. “Because you made me.”

“How?”

“With that,” he points and the screen, but doesn’t break eye contact with you.

“How?”

This time, Yuno laughs fully. “With blank sheet music and my favourite mechanical pencil. And a lot of nostalgia. Why, did you fall in love with it?”

“The music—it had a soul,” your words are choppy, almost robotic, like a nervous staccato. “Why would you put so much into a class assignment?”

“I value passion above all things when it comes to art. Especially when it comes to my art,” a hint of the arrogance of him his back, but you’re starting to see through it. “Your passion permeates your work. I just reflected it through music. I’d say the chemistry of music, sound and visuals is magnetic here.”

He’s flattered by your silence, it tells him you might believe what he’s saying.

“Any notes for me?” he adds as an afterthought, testing to see if it’ll make you put all your masks on again.

“It’s… still missing something,” and you’re not surprised to see his eyes widen, “I’m not sure what it is. The music is… linear. Like the storytelling. But music is more of a circle, isn’t it? I think it’s missing a leitmotif. To bring the film full-circle.”

Yuno’s surprised at your knowledge of the terminology, which he really shouldn’t be. Still, he smiles at your observation, half-nodding because he kind of agrees that the current score flows like a river, always forward until it reaches a bigger body. And in film, unlike in other formats, music does need to come full-circle.

“Is it not unforgettable as it is, though? Leitmotifs do add memorability, but they also make something repetitive out of the score.”

“It’s a 9 ½ right now. You promised me a 10.”

“You’re harsh,” and he likes it, “do you have a boyfriend?”

“That would be none of your business.”

Yuno laughs. “So no?”

“Leitmotif,” you repeat sternly, getting up and tightening your grip on the bag over your shoulders. “I’ll meet you again on Thursday?”

One of Yuno’s eyebrows arches suggestively. “Yours or mine?”

“The Library,” you clarify, rolling your eyes away from his, “bring a drive with your edit and we’ll go over it. Around six sound good?”

“So you’re that type, huh?”

“What type?”

“My type.”

You groan and start to walk away. “Goodbye, Jung Yuno.”

“Aren’t you going to ask for my number?”

“Thursday,” you call over your shoulder, “6PM. The Library.”

  
Wednesdays are usually pretty chill. You only have two lectures in the afternoon, so you get to sleep in and lounge around, though most days you just wake up, drink coffee and head to the Observatory to do work.

Academic and otherwise.

Which is what you’re currently doing, Doyoung sat across from you with his own century-old book in hand.

“So is he cute or not?”

“I’m trying to study, Doyoung,” you say through gritted teeth, absolutely regretting having told him about your composer.

Ew, not your composer.

The composer.

The composer for your short.

Anyway.

“Don’t you ever get tired of studying?” Doyoung asks, amused at the sourness in your words, in your expression. Though he does have a point, the position you’re in is the one he’s seen you in most consistently since you were about eight or nine years old.

Even in Paris. Especially in Paris.

“Nope,” and there’s an audible pop in the last syllable that makes Doyoung’s grin widen, “don’t you ever get tired of minding my business?”

“Nope,” and he imitates you exactly, so well that it makes you mirror his grin, “it’s my job to mind your business.”

And sadly, he’s right.

“But it’s also your job to help keep the natural and supernatural balance in this sub-continent, so why aren’t you out doing that?” and you’re right to ask, Doyoung is the most important hunter in this region.

“I got a substitute for that,” he replies simply, not even missing a beat, “I’m all yours until you’re ready to take on the apprenticeship.”

“Dongyoung,” you plead, using his real name for once because you’re not joking around about this, “not you, too.” And he meets your eyes, looking into them with severity to make you see the weight of your every word, of your every action, and it makes you sigh.

“I know you hate talking about this, but this is your path. It’s the most badass path the Institute has ever seen. You’ll be the first hunter with an actual future. We might finally get a decent representation of us out in the public… and we’ll have a Crowne hunter at the head of our ranks.” The way he speaks is so hopeful, like he believes in you more than you believe in yourself, more than he believes in himself, and your heart aches because of it. The look in his eyes is bright, almost sparkling and the way he smiles at you has always killed you, especially when he smiles like this, his eyes barely open and the lines of his face making a young boy out of an aged warrior… but…

“I don’t want to be a hunter,” you start, quietly, carefully. “I’m not fit to lead or to bear the Crowne name. If anyone at all should be the heir of The Four it should be you.”

Doyoung bursts out laughing. “I’m too old and invested.”

“Invested in what?”

He doesn’t answer, choosing instead to look down at his book to leaf through it. “You know everything you need to, you’ve learned everything you need to. You’ve prepared for this your whole life and you have passed every test with flying colours. It has to be you. It’s always been you.”

You’ve already turned your gaze away when he glances back up at you. “It won’t be me,” you say firmly, dismissively, turning to your own book.

He takes a breath, hard through his nose, and rests his arms atop the long mahogany desk you’re both sharing. He calls your name once, and you freeze immediately because the frosty cold in his voice is the kind you rarely ever hear, one you only ever heard once before directed at you. Now he doesn’t sound like Kim Doyoung, the boy you’ve known all your life. Now he sounds like the second highest ranked demon hunter alive.

“Look at me.”

And you do so immediately. Something in your stomach twists at his tone and you almost want to grin but you’re too intimidated to dare to.

“Stop rejecting your fate,” he begins, voice strong, adamant, almost like a sparking fire. “You have the blood of the Crowne. You are their heir. That is your title, I already have mine.” He looks at you like he always does when he gets tired of you treating your life like it is a common one and you resent it. “You will get this degree. You will excel. But you will embrace your fate. You will embrace this.”

“Or what?”

Doyoung bites back the anger that climbs up his throat and makes his nostrils flare, and you see the rage in his eyes, how his ivory skin seems nearly transparent as he pales because of the anger, a flash of red in his near-black irises— 

And you relent.

“Fine,” you sigh. “Fine. Don’t get angry with me.”

Doyoung avoids your gaze when you try to catch his own, his eyes diverting to the dark roast by his book. Then he sighs.

“I’m not angry,” he relents, too, his voice soft again, “I’m just trying to keep you level. I’m your guardian. I’m supposed to keep you safe. That is my path. Don’t lose sight of yours. Your future is so much more than a degree and a job. You’re going to be the head of an entire Institution. You are going to be the scales of the natural and supernatural— ”

“And you?”

Doyoung’s stunned at your interruption, so he doesn’t know what to answer you with. But he knows what he is. If you’re the scales, then he— 

“I’m the sword at your side. I always have been.”

He sips his drink and it’s hard to ignore the weight of his every word, his every action when he talks like this. It’s hard to be cynical, hard to wear the mask that you’ve been hiding behind since you started university.

Yet somehow you always see light through his stark, dark reality.

“Do you think he’ll get us married?” you catch him mid-drink and he chokes immediately, and you burst out laughing, because it’s funny watching him try to look like his throat isn’t raw from coughing, and because you’ve shattered the barrier that had started to build to separate you from him.

“I don’t want to marry you,” he says finally, and he sounds more boyish than ever now.

“That’s not what you said on your 21st birthday.”

“I was drunk and stupid,” Doyoung hates remembering that night.

“That doesn’t mean you were lying,” you add, moving to steal a sip of his drink.

“I hate you.”

“That’s the exact opposite of what you said that night.”

“Let me live,” he groans, “I was young and didn’t know my place.”

“Just say you want to marry someone prettier and more ladylike than me,” you’re hoping to lighten the mood, but Doyoung blushes a deep shade of pink and you can’t help but feel a little bad for pushing this subject.

“Can we not talk about this?”

“Aren’t you going to tell me I’m pretty?”

“You’re hideous.”

“Dongyoung!” you laugh, louder and harder, mostly because you know he doesn’t mean it, “I’m perfectly average!”

He ignores your last words, and you narrow your eyes at him. “I’m even getting asked out and all,” you remind him, and he clears his throat audibly before looking at you through his mug.

“You can’t date outside the Institute.”

“You absolutely just made that up.”

“Did not,” he retorts, and now his coffee looks like a glass of warm milk with how he sounds, the way he almost pouts at you, like he’s twelve again. “You can’t bring in people from the outside.”

You muse at his words for a moment, and remember Jung Yuno’s aura. “I’m not entirely sure he is from the outside.”

Doyoung’s phone rings suddenly, making you jump as he quietly gets it out because he already knows who’s calling.

“Yes, Professor,” he greets, then pauses to listen. “Yes, sir,” he eyes you pointedly, so you know the Professor just asked about you and where you are. “Yes, sir,” Doyoung repeats, moving to get up and gather his dark gray wool pea coat from the back of his armchair. “Yes, sir,” he says with finality, “right away, sir.”

The call ends and Doyoung looks at you again. “Don’t date idiots.”

“Then date me.” You cross your arms over your chest, smiling, challenging him.

“You’re not my type.”

You give him narrow eyes again, seeing through all of him. “Liar.”

“Allow me to correct myself, then,” Doyoung hooks his arms through the sleeves of his jacket, “I’m not your type.”

You hate when he does this, when he says something horrible and cynical and sad before he does something cool like tug the flaps of his jacket or light a cigarette before walking away, leaving you with all your words in your mouth. But you sigh and watch him go, like you always do, because it’s what you’ve always done.

Doyoung has always sucked at seeing how invaluable he is… he’ll never admit it, but you’d be dead without him.

You hope he knows you’d be dead without him.

  
“I swear she knew,” Yuno repeats for the hundredth time, looking at Lee Taeyong with the soberest eyes he can give his elder after four tequila shots. “She knows something.”

“You’ve never talked about a human as often as you do this one,” Taeyong replies dismissively, “you’re probably just projecting on her.”

“Most humans are boring— ”

“They’re not,” Taeyong interrupts quickly.

“This one isn’t,” Yuno goes on, anyway. “You should have seen the look on her face when I played her score for her. Speechless and in awe. I love when that happens.”

“Yes,” Taeyong breathes out, uninterested, into his glass of holy water, “you do have an affinity for people and things that praise you as much as you praise yourself.”

“She didn’t praise me at all,” Yuno smiles, dazed, “and she’s single.”

Taeyong shakes his head disapprovingly, though he’s smiling.

“So I need you to teach me how you do that thing you do that makes all humans love you.”

“It’s called ‘being a good person’,” Taeyong offers, “you’ve probably never heard of it.”

“I can be a good person.”

“Yeah?” Taeyong takes another sip of water, “I dare you.”

In Taeyong’s eyes, Yuno was never anything more than a boy stuck in the body of an immortal vampire in his 20s, and it shows the most when he’s drunk on liquor and daydreams. Mentally and emotionally, Yuno is probably about seven years old. That’s why it’s no surprise to the older man to see Yuno pout at him like his pride has been wounded.

Taeyong wonders then if Yuno will ever change.

“I’m just so curious,” Yuno explains, “she specifically used the word ‘compulsion’. She wouldn’t know to use the term if she wasn’t in the know.”

“She’d know the term if she ever read Anne Rice or Stephenie Meyer, or, I don’t know, watched the Vampire Diaries.”

Yuno pouts; Taeyong has a point.

“What we do isn’t called ‘compulsion’. It’s called will-bending. Mind control. Brain reprogramming. And it doesn’t work if the subject isn’t already submissive to us. She probably just meant that your charisma made it sound like you wanted to manipulate her. Humanly.”

It still doesn’t sound right. The look in your eyes was too sure, too certain. “I think she might have… I don’t know… felt something, at least.”

“Or she sees through your prick behaviour and calls it like she sees it,” Taeyong insists. “Give it a break. Go work on her score, that’s what you actually should be worrying about.” And again, Taeyong has a point. And Yuno sighs, looks down and fidgets with his feet.

“Moderns have mastered the art of visible invisibility among humans. I doubt a college girl could clock you at first sight.”

“What if she knew what to look for?”

“Hunters don’t kill vampires anymore,” Taeyong catches Yuno’s drift immediately and reminds the younger vampire with a stern tone how things work now. “Not since the Institute passed the law. We are not demons, just — ”

“Just cursed,” Yuno finishes for him, and sighs again. But the curiosity still eats at him, and Taeyong can see it.

“You’re hopeless,” he says. “Try to bend her will again. Maybe your mojo isn’t working because you’re low on victuals.”

“‘Victuals’? What is this, 16th century England?” Yuno deadpans, but he thinks for a moment and yeah, his next feeding is tomorrow, it’s been two weeks since his last because his favourite donor had been on vacation.

“Try to compel her again after you feed,” Taeyong reiterates, “if it doesn’t work, confront her. Hell, she might make an honest man out of you if she’s a hunter. Or a mage.”

“Yeah,” Yuno grins, letting the subject drift to a close for now. “Speaking of which, how did it go with your elder?”

Taeyong looks pained suddenly. “No breaks yet. Not that we expected anything else.”

“Just feed properly.”

“I don’t want to bite— ”

“You’ll always be a weakling if you only feed off of blood bags,” Yuno swirls his glass just to hear the ice in it tumble around, “it won’t make much sense for you invest so much into finding out shit about your past if you’re going to mummify about a month from now.”

“I made a vow never to drink off the vein.”

“That was so long ago,” Yuno reasons, but Taeyong remains stoic, resolute. “Listen, what happened back then sucked. But you need to feed properly. You need to keep yourself at least mildly healthy or you’ll drop before you even get to the bottom of this.”

“I’ll take my chances.”

Yuno actually smiles, because Taeyong is hopeless, too.

“You always do.”

  
Your last class ends at 6PM on Thursdays, and you quickly jog out of class and towards the Library as soon as you’re granted freedom from the History of Film II lecture. Your pace isn’t hurried, through your mind is racing. Because you’re nervous to see the short with music already edited in, you’re nervous about whether or not it’ll get you a good final grade or if you’ll hate it completely. And you wonder about Jung Yuno’s aura, why it unsettles you and attracts you at the same time.

Well, you know why. You just don’t know if it’s the good kind of attraction or the bad kind.

You feel the chill of winter on your way towards the Literature and Publishing building, where the Library is, and you tug your coat closer to your body as you reach the entrance. The air is crisp even as you step inside the marbled walls and head for the elevators. You’re numb to the buzz of student movement around you, the conversations going off in your immediate radius until the elevator dings to announce that you’ve reached the third floor. You quickly walk off and take a deep breath.

The silence in the Library is like a shock to your ears. It always is, and it’s part of why you love it here. You walk up to the main desk, where you spot a boy you’d like to call a friend smile at you.

“Hey, Zeus,” you call with a wave of your hand, and Kim Jungwoo returns it with a wide smile that makes the whole of him look like a bunny. Then he points at the study room directly behind him.

“Nips just got here like, two minutes ago,” he says, and you shoot him wide eyes.

“Nips?”

“Yeah, Yuno. He’s over there in 217.”

How does he know?

“He’s cute. Yours?” he asks with a coy smile.

“Not mine,” you assert quickly, moving towards the aforementioned room. “Just cute.”

Oh, fuck, did you just call him cute? Out loud?

Jungwoo smirks at you as you walk past him, and though you shake your head, you figure it’s better to pretend like you didn’t say anything and move on.

And even from the tiny window on the door to the study room you can see Jung Yuno smugly toying around the latest version of Pro Tools, hitting his laptop’s spacebar like he’s got something to prove.

Maybe he is cute. Maybe the line of his back is the tiniest bit attractive. Or maybe it’s the way he’s working, jaw clenched but eyes soft, warm, curious.

You think to yourself that all this time, you just may have been lying to yourself about his aura. That maybe you’ve refused to see it as it is, this vibrant energy outlined by the supernatural ultraviolet that you’ve been trained to spot to know that there’s something there, something that’s not human.

But then you remind yourself of that decree, ten years ago, that declared that vampires were not demons. Just cursed.

You push the door open and he turns around immediately, like he’d already sniffed out your presence from behind the door. And you know he did, he probably even felt your lingering gaze on the back of his neck.

“Hey,” he greets, his voice softer than you expected. He sounds like you do after an intense few hours of working and no talking or any kind of interaction with anything other than whatever you’re working on.

“Hey,” you greet back, “is it ready?”

Yuno leans back on his chair and smiles. “Yes, ma’am.” You smile back and move to sit beside him, watching his grin grow from the corner of your eye, and you can’t help the way your nerves tingle a little more from how close to his aura you are.

“Hit it.”

The moment the short begins to play, you’re absorbed. Ready to nitpick, scrutinise, correct. You’re at the first pair of shoes and you close your eyes, trying to keep your ears sharp as they can get.

And then a new string of seven notes starts to play and your eyes shoot right back open.

Holy fuck.

The tension you’d kept to hold your expression breaks down completely, and Yuno notices and he’s delighted. Delighted at the way your whole countenance softens at the sound of the music, his music, now accompanied by a little percussion and a little accordion. He’s all too pleased to let go of the part of him that wants to indulge in his own art to watch you instead, to try and figure out where his art hist you the hardest.

He notices when gooseflesh rises on your arms, he can see the hairs on the back of your neck stand until you shiver minimally. He can hear your heartbeat quicken, and the sound booms between his ears until he can nearly feel it in his own chest. The entire experience mixes with the scent of you so nicely, a blend of the smokey lavender he carries with the black currant and mandarine you don and it is absolutely exquisite— 

Fuck, he needs to feed. As soon as possible. This is too much and it hasn’t even been ten minutes.

The credits start to roll before your eyes and you’re absolutely frozen in place. You blink blankly at the screen before turning to Yuno slowly, like you’re going to break if you move too fast. “Well, it’s absolutely a 10 now.”

Yuno chuckles. “You’re welcome. What do I get for securing an A+ for you?”

“You get my most sincere thanks,” you cross your arms over your chest, and you want to smile because for a minute there you’d forgotten this side of him.

“You’re not gonna ask me out?”

“Doesn’t that usually happen the other way around?” you give in to half a smile, at which he chuckles again. “Can you send me the .avi file?”

“Only if you ask me out.”

Is this guy serious?

“There’s about a thousand other people on campus that can ask you out, Jung Yuno.”

“Yeah, but I want you to ask me out.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re interesting,” he responds like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, “and cute.”

“I am not cute.”

Yuno laughs fully this time, “I think it’s up to me to decide that.”

“I am not cute,” you repeat sternly, though your ears are burning and you’re kind of bewildered, “and I’m not going to ask you out.”

“Okay, I’ll do it.”

You blink. “What?”

“Go out with me,” he says, looking you full in the eyes until you feel trapped within the miasma of his energy. This aura that you carelessly decided to interact with, this full-blooded vampire that you yourself decided to trust enough to joke around with.

You wonder if Doyoung would be disappointed in you.

The hunter in you suddenly wages war against the simple human being in you. One side wants to see Yuno for what he is, another wants nothing to change because he has done you no harm. One side wants him to know who and what you are, but another resists, because the veil of anonymity that you wear as a student has provided you with so much protection, so much comfort. And you’re not sure if you’re willing to give that up.

Then you feel it, the thoughts in your mind twisting; the image of him before your eyes attain an inexplicable glow, and you start to forget the anxiety that had been clawing at your mind. It’s replaced with something else, something much warmer, more inviting.

Trust him. Give in. Trust him.

He’s trying to compel you again. And now you have to make a choice. Hunter or human. Equals and rivals or cat and mouse.

“C’mon,” it’s like he’s coming closer to you but you know he hasn’t moved, “just a walk and maybe a drink? Or coffee if you don’t drink. Or tea if it’s too late for coffee.”

He’s smooth as silk and so is his voice and that’s probably why you hesitate so much. Why you refused to acknowledge it when you felt like you wanted him everywhere, as close as possible, wanted everything he wanted to become what you wanted, too, but—

“Why should I?”

But you don’t want this bubble to burst.

“You pick the place,” Yuno insists, his tone melodic and it makes your vision a little blurrier. He’s probably baffled at the fact that his mind control isn’t working and putting in extra effort so you can’t help the laugh that escapes you just then.

“I’m a perfect gentleman,” he continues, “and a lot of fun.”

“I’m not interested,” your laugh dims to a smile as you move to get up, swinging your bag over your shoulder. “Send me the file.”

“Tomorrow night,” the vampire grins, trying to catch your eyes again. “We can meet at the café on the corner of the West Campus Centre.”

“Absolutely not,” your smile remains, “I have work until 10PM.”

“Bullshit.”

You purse your lips. “Send me the files, Yuno.”

“Come out with me.”

Good grief.

“No,” you repeat. “Good night. I hope to find an email from you with the final version attached in my inbox tomorrow morning.”

You walk off before he can speak again, still smiling because the look on his face tells you that all this time he was convinced he had you somehow eating out the palm of his hand.

Pft. As if.

 

Yuno watches you walk away and a weird kind of pleasure washes over him. You’ll come around. Maybe it’s the fact that he can’t match your desires to his own that makes you so magnetic, maybe it’s something more. He honestly can’t wait to find out.

Excitement is hard to come by when you have immortal life.

But he can’t say he isn’t relieved when your scent finally starts fading as you leave the building, though he can still single you out as you cross to the opposite street. It’s only when you descend onto the nearby train station that your scent meddles with too many others for him to distinguish and he no longer feels like he’s in a damn trance.

He’s fucking starving.

Though he can’t help but smile when he looks back at his laptop screen. Maybe he can give this one final sweep before heading out to meet his donor. Curious, wanting to put another person’s needs before his own.

You just might be the kind of trouble worth getting into.

Grades don’t really mean much to him anymore; this’ll make his third undergraduate degree, after all. He just loves to study, loves making homes out of college towns, loves reliving his early 20s over and over. After this, he’ll get a Master’s in Composing and eventually a Ph.D. in Music. Then he can be a doctor and not of the medical kind anymore. And he’ll have fulfilled the last of his wildest human dreams.

He bored of practicing medicine about fifty years after being decreed as one, though every now and then he misses it. He just doesn’t miss the life he led while he practiced, feeding off of stolen blood bags at hospitals in Europe, compelling co-workers and biting their wrists between lectures as a university professor in New York City…

Coming back here was probably the best choice. He missed the fucked up weather, the air. How invisible he can be. How organised the bureaucracy is here compared to the previous places he’d lived. He’d missed the undeniable mysticism of this country, how easily energies flow, though the opportunities for chaos are just the same as they would be anywhere, honestly.

But there really is no place like home.

  
When you get the first text from Doyoung, you’ve just exited the train at the stop nearest the Observatory.

The Professor’s here, it reads.

As soon as you register the words, you start to sprint.

The chill of the winter is harsh on your cheeks but you don’t pay it any mind, and in six minutes you’re running past the front gates of the Observatory. You push open the double doors of the entrance and basically jump up the staircase to the main study, pretty nervous and maybe a little scared.

And with good reason.

The Professor is called Professor because that’s what he is, to you and Doyoung and maybe a couple hundred others. He’s an instructor on the theory of world folklore and the genesis of the natural/supernatural world. The most proliferous hunter of his time, he was the first person from the Institute you ever met; hell, he’s basically family to you and Doyoung. After all, his fame is second only to that of his most infamous pupils: the Spade Hunters and the Crowne Hunters.

Otherwise known as the people Doyoung calls Mum and Dad, and the people you called Mum and Dad.

Along with being the founder of the Security Council for Supernatural Affairs and the Institute for Supernatural Defence, the Professor is the highest-ranked hunter among the silver helmets, the Defense Corps of the SCSA. These three bodies monitor all movement concerning active non-human and demi-human communities around the globe. Essentially, they monitor the peace (or lack thereof) of the world beyond the world and its interactions with humanity.

The Professor is, essentially, the highest-ranked in all three organisations, has been for more than half of his ninety-two years alive. Though he’ll never look a day over thirty.

He has a name, one that people rarely ever use, so you don’t, either, and is the son of a demon huntress and a demon. And that isn’t why he holds the position he does. He’s become synonymous with balance because it’s what he has stressed the most throughout his career: it’s not about defeating evil, it’s about keeping balance on all planes of existence.

It was through arduous training, countless battles and some more civilised forms of communication that he formed several alliances and armies that supported his fight for balance, and it was about 70 years into his life that he happened upon his most promising soldiers. The four of them had risen unusually quickly to the tops of the ranks of an already well established Institute, and eventually, they became known by their distinctive monikers. Separately, they were known as the Spades and the Crowne hunters. United, they were The Four Horsemen.

They best upheld the basic principles of the Professor’s philosophy: the war against evil isn’t something to be won. It is a war for stability. Too often, things and creatures in Heaven and Hell and Purgatory and other spiritual realms get out of hand, and it is up to those who decide it to keep things where they should be. With time, the Professor attained a following of thousands. As such, these organizations gained a lot of heart, a lot of soul, and a lot of compassion. Though it’ll never compare to what they’ve lost.

When you were a child, the Titans of Hades threatened to wage war against the human world through creatures known as Leviathan. This was the largest scale union of spirit realms the Council had seen since its founding, and as such, they weren’t prepared for the amount of chaos that quickly erupted in small areas all over the world.

From the history you’ve studied, it apparently was supposed to be the kind of war that began as but a speck and eventually grew to a fucking shitstorm.

As soon as trouble began to turn ugly, the Spade and Crowne hunters were dispatched to the region with the most activity, and you were left behind in Paris (the then HQ city of the Institute) at a bunker in the depths of Montmartre with Doyoung and his younger brother. You would be there for weeks with only three-word messages from your parents that you would receive between lessons on what crawls underneath the Earth’s soil, and what is on and what is above it.

Leviathan, you came to learn, are pure evil. Madness incarnate. The kind of malevolence that destroys everything in its path with absolutely no mercy.

The Four Horsemen, and many other soldiers, were supposed to only contain them while the Council confronted the Titans, but there was a very, very clear difference in power.

So when the Spades burst through the doors of that bunker with the Crowne hunters in their arms, the outcome of the mission was all too clear.

Balance restored, but at a horrible cost.

The Spades handed back their titles, their sigils, and their weapons after that. They left behind all their research and their reports and took off with what they had left and their youngest son.

Doyoung decided to stay. Not because he wanted to carry the burden of the Spade legacy, but because you had nowhere to go. And he refused to leave you behind. He refused to leave you alone to be raised with the pain of your grief with only war-stricken soldiers and their leader to rely on.

Even then he was too brilliant for his age, already more than aware of what he was sacrificing for the sake of someone else. 

In time, he outgrew the legacy of his family and became known as the Iron Spade. The true heir of The Four, in your humble opinion.

Though for some reason they still pin that title to you. That’s why the Professor looks at you the way he does as you step into the study, with a severity that dwarfs your cynicism and reminds you that after all, you have a deep attachment to the duty you were assigned when you became an orphaned kid.

“Good evening, child,” he says, his voice soft and stern at once, and you look around to see Doyoung already seated at one of the desks and nursing his usual coffee, though this time on ice. “You didn’t have to run.”

“It’s been months,” you say breathlessly, but manage a smile, and you both near each other for a brief hug. “We hadn’t got word since the last nest was raided in Chicago.”

The Professor takes a step back so he can hold you by the shoulders and look you in the eyes again. “You’re getting prettier,” hm, he usually doesn’t avoid the subject of work and active missions, but you smile anyway. The flattery is meaningless to you, anyway, because this kind of praise is not the kind you like to receive.

“Must be something about the food, huh?” his arms drop from your frame and the Professor looks over his shoulder at Doyoung, who offers a smile of agreement. The man beckons you to take a seat alongside Doyoung and carries a third chair for himself over to the desk, and you wait silently for the ball to drop.

He wouldn’t come all this way just to greet you.

“You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” he begins, and both you and Doyoung straighten up in your seats. “I’ll say first that I come bearing no bad news.”

Out the corner of your eye, you see Doyoung visibly relax, and the Professor notices as well.

“Your team is doing tremendously well. They miss you terribly,” he says very sincerely to Doyoung, who responds with a warm smile. “Everyone misses you both dearly.”

And you miss them too, Johnny and Woojin and Nayeon and Minho, and your heart aches for a moment as you think of the people who trained with you, grew up with you and probably think you’re insane for even thinking of pursuing a career in art and not in war.

“I’m here tonight because, as you know, the Council’s summit is in a few weeks,” the Professor rejoins and you listen carefully because if you’re not mistaken—

“That night, I’m going to announce you as my successor.”

Yeah, this is usually the part where the real shit starts.

The Professor is looking at you straight in the eyes and you’re sure you’ve paled a few shades. “And Dongyoung will be named your second in command.”

Silence brews between the three of you for about a minute. You turn to look at Doyoung, and when he meets your eyes you feel a mess of emotions being exchanged between you. You know he feels it, too, the confusion and dread and the slightest hint of wishful thinking, of excitement. And then you both turn to your elder.

“Aren’t we way too young?” and you sound especially childlike as you say it, so the Professor smiles.

“I said I was making the announcement that you would be my successor. I never said anything about retiring from my post.”

It still sounds… wrong.

“What’s wrong, child?”

You hesitate, but decide to speak your mind anyway. “I thought we agreed this wouldn’t be discussed until after I finished university,” you feel something akin to scorn start to burn inside you, it somehow feels like this bit of news is taking away more than it is giving.

“Do you want all that time?”

You look up at your elder and gulp again. Do you want all that time, would you selfishly take it?

A part of you doesn’t care. You don’t care what others do with their time, so why would anyone care about what you do with yours?

“So many things are heavy on your shoulders, child. You have an enormous role to assume.”

“Why should I assume it at all?” your tone is defiant, resentful, and it makes Doyoung’s eyes widen. But the Professor remains perfectly stoic.

“Because it is your destiny.”

“According to who?” you’ve raised your voice now, and you don’t care because the calm look on the Professor’s face infuriates you.

“You.”

The Professor smiles and you freeze completely. “For years after your parents were killed. Did you forget what you said? You said you wanted to become the best hunter and leader for our community. So that what happened to the Crownes and the Spades would never happen again. So that we would have a leader that is better, and stronger, and wiser than me. You decided this.”

There’s a rush of blood to your head and you remember everything. Every time you preached about becoming a hunter your parents would be proud of, maybe surpassing their ranks. You remember dreaming of being someone as strong as the Professor, maybe even surpassing his ranks, too. Your goal for so long was to fight for the honour of your parent’s memory and to defend the cause they died fighting for. It’s what you prophesied for years… but— 

“I didn’t know any better.”

“You knew all too well.” The Professor smiles again. “And that is why I have always stood by you. Because I know you will be better and stronger and wiser than me, than I could ever be. That’s why it has to be you.”

You bite your lower lip. “But things have changed— ”

“Things will always change,” he interrupts and a flick of rage shocks your whole body. “We exist because of change. We evolve because of change. And, in a way, we are change. You, in this case, you will be the change that we need.”

“You know what? I don’t want to be your change,” you get up, your breathing quickening and your heart thundering against your chest. “I want to be whoever the hell I want to be and do whatever the hell I want to do. What I want to do is to get a degree. Kick me out or disown me if that’s a crime. I just want to be a regular fucking human.”

The aghast look on Doyoung’s face informs you that you have effectively let your anger get the better of you. You don’t care.

“You are not a regular fucking human.”

Your head whips around to find the Professor still calm, still collected. His tone still soft. But his words still manage to make your courage decimate, and you debate on whether or not you should stand your ground or relent.

“I’ll reserve my right to decide that. Kill me if that breaks one of your laws. Kill me for wanting to live a life that I want to lead. Maybe the Spades were right, maybe we are just a cancer.”

No one says anything, does anything as you (very dramatically) rise from your seat, collect your things and storm out of the room with your head held high.

  
“I’m not going, Yuno.”

“You have to! It’ll be an energy feast! Nobody knows how to waste good energy like college kids,” Yuno reasons, and pouts at his elder from his seat on the sofa.

“I don’t have to,” Taeyong responds calmly from the adjacent armchair, “and I won’t. Take Yuta or something.” And he leafs through the novel in his arms with absolute nonchalance.

“Yuta hyung is no fun～”

“I’m no fun either.”

“Come on, hyung,” Yuno is full-on whining now, “I have no other friends.”

“You have many,” Taeyong doesn’t look up from his book, it’s just starting to get interesting. “Didn’t I meet one of them last weekend? What was her name— ”

“That was not a friend!”

Taeyong laughs. “Humans are friends, Yuno. Not food.”

“Humans are food. Come with me to this party.”

“No.”

Yuno throws himself fully on the sofa he’d been sat in and lands face down on one of the bigger cushions on it with a small poof.

“I can’t go alone!” Yuno’s voice is muffled but Taeyong still hears him clearly, and he turns the page on his novel. The main heroine just met her match at her sculpting class.

“Take your film music friend.”

Yuno raises his head in a flash, hair an absolute mess but eyes sparkling. “What?”

“That human you made the score for.”

Yuno rests the side of his head on the pillow with a bashful smile. “She won’t even give me her number.”

Taeyong chuckles, eyes on the paperback but no longer on its words. “Good girl.”

Yuno’s grin widens. “It would be nice to get drunk with an interesting human for once… ” his voice trails off with the growth of his dazed smile. He hasn’t yet figured out what to do with you, and Taeyong can read the younger’s mind like the back of his own hand.

“Humans are friends, Jung Yuno,” the elder sighs, and his tone clearly defines his words as a warning. “Friends.”

Yuno lets out one last chortle before getting up, moving towards the foyer of the loft to get his coat. He’s still indescribably chipper as he puts it on and turns to Taeyong.

“Where do you suppose an overachieving college student hangs out on a Thirsty Thursday?”

  
Honestly, after getting some air, you really aren’t sure if you should have stormed out of the Observatory the way you did. You consider going back to at least make peace and apologise for your attitude, because the Professor has never denied you of anything you’ve ever wanted and it feels sour to return all that kindness with your immaturity.

But another part of you just wants to be a normal college student for the night. You don’t want to think about the Institute or the Council or the Observatory or the Professor or even Doyoung right now.

You just need some space.

The initial obstacle to your search for peace is your phone, which started going off two minutes after you left the Observatory. It is currently blowing up in your coat pocket, and you don’t need to check for who it is that’s causing the constant vibration, because you already know.

He’s probably coming out to look for you soon, if he hasn’t started already.

You just need some room to breathe. Away from school and your final projects, away from your broken past and your pseudo-home and away from even the thought of the future. Just for a few hours.

You’ve taken the train downtown and you’re currently walking around the ‘trendy’ part of the city. You’d expected this place to be noisier than it is, and honestly, you’re quite pleasantly surprised at how though it’s buzzing with activity, it’s not overbearing. Your pace is kind of hurried despite yourself, but you still take note of how you feel less of the cold night now, less of the gusts that usually take over the city after sundown. You still hold your coat tightly against yourself, but it’s more because of how on-guard you feel like you have to be and not anything to do with the weather.

A regular fucking human, huh? What even is that?

The night sky is starry and clear when you look up, and you breathe in and out and ponder. The moon is full and casting a beautiful light on the entirety of the city, especially the nooks and crannies where there aren’t any LED or neon lights. You could feel free here.

For a moment you curse yourself for not picking up your earphones when you left the dorms this morning, because you’d have loved to have all of this accompanied by Tora or Frank Ocean.

But you guess that for now, the booming music bursting from the restaurants and bars you’re walking past currently will have to do.

The buzz of buzzed people and chatty diners serve as a backing track as you walk on. You don’t try to drown them out like you usually do. Instead, you let them replace the chaos of the rushing thoughts in your mind, you try to use it as white noise. You even tune into some of the voices, imagine yourself seated at a comfortable table for four with friends and too many soju cocktails, talking about your worries and how the biggest of them is that stupid party on Saturday that you didn’t even want to go to in the first place but you deserve a little fun, you’ll do it for the memories.

You were always good at make-believe.

Could you really let yourself be reckless for a night? Even an hour? Can you dare yourself to be normal? Irresponsible? Even a little careless?

You sigh and bite your lower lip to stop a smile from forming. Maybe one day you can be that person, but not tonight. Tonight you have to be— 

“Hey!”

You look over your shoulder too quickly and lose where the voice had come from among all the people, all the energy. Out of habit, you raise your two fists at level with your shoulders.

And Jung Yuno laughs in your face. “Are you going to hit me?”

You narrow your eyes when you find his own, and lower your arms. “What do you want?”

“Oho, did I catch you in a bad mood?”

“I’m always in a bad mood.”

“True,” Yuno’s smile warms, “wanna go to a frat party?”

You blink up at him in silence at first. The people walking past you whisper a few pardons and one of them curses. “I thought you wanted to go out tomorrow.”

“So you were going to go out with me!”

“I never said that,” you reply simply.

“You kinda did. Wanna go to a frat party?”

“With you?”

Yuno laughs again. “Noncommittally.”

You narrow your eyes further and Yuno laughs with more heart. For a moment you’re nearly blinded by how the light of his energy swells when he laughs. He’s already magnetic by default, that much was clear to you from the moment you met him, but when there’s so much emotion in his features right now. He’s like a moon, gold, and silver and diamonds all melded together. That’s what he exudes right now, and the ultraviolet beam haloes it all so stunningly. He has the most unique aura you’ve encountered yet.

“So,” he tugs you out of your head by tugging at the sleeve of your coat and you blink twice at his words, “will you make me ask a third time?”

“No.”

“Will you come?”

“Sure.”

He freezes on a triumphant smile and it lasts only a moment, because after that he takes you by the arm and steers you in the direction of wherever it is that you’re going, and you can’t help but smile yourself.

“Aren’t I a little underdressed, though?” you say, referring to your plain black jeans and white tee, “I haven’t even got makeup on.” You’re looking forward and not at him, though, as you feel the tiniest bit of tension build between you.

“You’ll still be the most interesting person there.”

You look at the side of his face for a second, trying to read into him, but he doesn’t do anything but grin and keep his eyes on the path he’s coursing. “Besides me, of course,” he adds as an afterthought, and you let yourself laugh.

“What about my devilish good looks?” you push his shoulder with yours jokingly, but he doesn’t react.

“If you already know you’re beautiful, then I needn’t have to remind you.”

“Spoil me.” And you only say it because you know he can, because you’re daring to be reckless with a vampire, breathing his air of thrill and for once you want to get lost in something outside your world, outside your norm. Maybe you want to try his world for a bit.

Then he looks you square in the eyes. “You’re stunning. You always are,” he says, firmly, without even the slightest hint of doubt or reserve. And then he catches himself. “But all eyes are going to be on me, so don’t worry your little head too much,” he even ruffles your hair as you walk on. “We’re not far.”

 

This party is just like that one other one you went to on the second term of your freshman year, and you are surprisingly not disgusted by everything you see.

Wooden floors with the occasional wet stain, surely spilled from the red solo cups you see everywhere filled to the brim with beer or jungle juice. There’s a smell in the air that mixes burnt tobacco, weed, bad vodka and what you think might be Thai food.

Yuno looks absolutely delighted beside you. “Right on time,” he chimes before taking a long stride forward so he can turn around and face you. “Drink?”

“Uh…” your voice trails off as you look around, you don’t feel safe enough to let loose here, at least not yet.

“You don’t have to if you don’t feel comfortable,” Yuno lays a hand on your shoulder, and the image of The Professor flashes before your eyes for a millisecond. And then Yuno’s hand moves up to your cheek, only for a moment, and it forces you to refocus on him. “Let’s just live a little, hm?”

“I live a lot.”

“For your GPA, for your art and your writing and for whatever part-time job you were coming from, yes, but this?” his hand drops from your face so he can gesture to the space around you, and surely he means this noise, this crowdedness and the body heat, the energy of freedom and wilderness and laissez-faire that this room is bursting with.

He’s right. You never live for this.

“How does a quieter room and a vodka soda sound now?” he looks you so intensely in the eyes that you have to reconsider, and when he quirks an eyebrow, you smile.

“Fine, I guess.”

“Atta girl,” Yuno pats the top of your head before he hangs the same arm over your shoulders, steering you away from the thick of the action. Even though you are absolutely fascinating to study, and though he loves that the lights are this low and the music is this loud here, he knows where the boys keep the real party at.

“Where are we going?”

“To greet the hosts,” Yuno says like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, and you follow along as he walks through the crowd toward a small and significantly less congested room.

Wherein you see a face you would have never guessed you’d see doing a keg stand.

“Youngho hyung!”

You know full well it wasn’t you who called his name, but Youngho looks up and shuts down entirely upon seeing you. He clocks Yuno out the corner of his eye, and after a second of nearly choking, he rises to his feet to walk up to you both with an expression that mixes glee and an anxious kind of surprise. He calls you both by name and Yuno turns to you to see that you’ve got the same expression as the tall host.

“You know each other?”

“Uh— ”’

“Yeah, man! From high school!” Youngho is beet red in the face, smiling like he just won the lottery and straight-up lying and you don’t get why, so you shut your mouth. You’re sure you’ll get the answers you want as soon as you get this guy alone.

Because Suh Youngho is supposed to be on assignment in Chicago right now. And this is not an assignment in Chicago.

In all your years of studying, you’d never really looked into the effects of certain substances on certain demi-humans. You’d read hundreds of books on how to spot them, how to do basic recon on them, and how to kill them. 

So you’re mighty surprised to see how little alcohol it takes to get Yuno absolutely shit-faced. 

You should be impressed at your own tolerance, too, because after six shots of soju you really should be complaining about a migraine and seeing triple. But you’re fine. The wide expanse of the living room feels like it’s about to catch fire, and you find yourself gravitating towards the open windows that let in some of the winter chill. Your thoughts do still feel fuzzy and you think you haven’t finished a sentence you’ve spoken to the people idly conversing with you as you make your way around, but you feel pretty okay. Mostly because you’re dead set on taking Youngho aside to talk. 

Youngho—or Johnny, as you and Doyoung know him—was the only other kid that also lived at the Institute after your parents passed away. His own were heads of administration at the organisation, which apparently required so much of their time and livelihood that eventually they just moved into the place. So the three of you could be most often seen frolicking together around the expansive libraries or playing with smaller weapons out in the courtyards. 

Good times that certainly built a kind of trust between you that was not very easily broken. And that’s the only reason why you didn’t punch the guy directly after seeing him, or when you pulled him toward the spot you were standing in currently. 

“So? Are you on a different mission or what?”

Johnny looks away from Yuno, who’s telling a very poor account of an adventure he had on a holiday trip to the Hamptons, and turns to you with a smile. 

“You probably don’t want to know, little cygnet.”

There they go again with that damn pet name.

“Don’t call me that,” you groan, although it sounds less annoying coming from him because he originally came up with it, “and don’t keep shit from me.”

“Right back at you,” Johnny bites, “you could’ve at least left a letter before you left.”

You’re quiet for a moment. “You would’ve been mad.”

“At you? Never,” he says, and it makes you pout guiltily. 

“Are you mad now?”

“No,” Johnny’s expression glows a little as his countenance gains warmth, something deeply characteristic to him and one of the reasons why you always thought he was the polar opposite of Doyoung. Where Doyoung was cool-headed and almost ruthless, Johnny was always soft. Not just for you, but for everyone that surrounded him. He truly treated you like his own sibling, protected you in ways that Doyoung could not, or rather, would not. 

That, however, meant that Johnny kept you close. As close as possible so you wouldn’t be hurt by the outside world. And by the time you were of age, and between his doting and Doyoung’s constant pressure, it started to feel like the Institute was asphyxiating you. Then came the time that they were old enough and ranked high enough to go on missions, too, and for longer than a few days. So you saw less and less of them until suddenly, you hadn’t seen the guys for weeks. Months, even. 

And then you got accepted into college. As soon as that happened, Doyoung stepped down as the chief hunter in the region he’d been stationed in and flew back to headquarters, and Johnny was appointed as his replacement under the premise of Doyoung having to be moved somewhere else for an unknown reason. 

That somewhere else being where you are right now, and the unknown reason being your leaving for school. 

“As long as you’re happy, you know,” Johnny shrugs, and after a moment of silence he turns to confirm that you’re not feeling regretful, “are you? Happy?”

You nod timidly, and Johnny finds it absolutely endearing, so much that he pinches both your cheeks. You look him in the eyes just then, and the familiarly magical shade of brown of his irises reminds you of home, of a comfort you hadn’t felt once since you moved here. 

Who would’ve thought him abandoning his post would make you feel this giddiness?

Which brings you back to— 

“Will you tell me what’s going on now?”

Johnny looks back to Yuno, who is now laughing and surrounded by a small crowd of mostly women as they play Never Have I Ever. A bad move for a vampire with no tolerance for booze, he’d say. 

“I… quit.”

You deadpan at him even though he’s not even looking at you, your eyes the size of small planets. “You what?”

“I quit,” Johnny says more firmly. “I quit the cult. Left. My parents, too.”

The cult?

“I don’t understand,” you reply, and Johnny laughs because of course you wouldn’t. He just called the place you both grew up in a cult. And then the tall man sighs. 

“There’s so much you don’t know, little cygnet,” he comes closer to you now, patting your hair like he used to when you were kids. 

“Then tell me,” you basically implore, your heart beating nervously because you’re about to start panicking. “You’re scaring me, John.”

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life.”

Johnny smiles. So big that his eyes decimate in size. You wouldn’t hesitate for a moment when it comes to him or Doyoung, ever. That much will hopefully never change. 

“I have something I need to do. In order for me to be able to do it, I had to quit. It took the better part of a year but we made it happen. My parents wanted to retire, so they left as well. They’re still in Chicago, just not working like slaves anymore. Do you understand now?” 

“Does the Professor know?”

“He’s part of the reason why I need to do what I need to do.”

“Are you going to make me figure this out myself?”

Johnny sighs again, deeper this time. “If you’re here right now, then it means you’ll find out about everything eventually.”

A few things click in your mind suddenly. This place was chosen as one of many bases for the Institute because of your moving here, but also because it’s a pretty inactive area in terms of demons. But it is vampire territory, as you’ve come to recently find out. 

Which can only mean— 

Yuno is not alone here. Of course not, he wouldn’t be. Vampires are highly sociable demi-humans, they make entire subcultures out of their covens. Why else would a demon hunter (or a former one) be hosting energy-infested parties in the area with the highest concentration of humans of a vampire territory?

“Are we in danger?” your tone is serious, your expression tense, you’re suddenly questioning your judgment regarding this entire week and you regret everything you’ve done because you should have known better. You should have known better— 

“Quite the opposite, actually.”

Johnny laughs at the way your eyebrows arch with confusion, and he wonders if alcohol always made you this susceptible to paranoia. Probably not. But he also thinks Yuno might be the first demi-human you’ve ever befriended, and that’s why you look the way you do. Like you regret letting your guard down before a potential threat. 

Regretfully, it really isn’t the vampires that are the threat here. 

“Let’s not talk about this anymore tonight,” Johnny clears his throat and his eyes revert back to the role he’s supposed to be playing, the role he wants to be playing right now, and you pout. “How about another shot?”

“Can I keep seeing you? Do I have to keep you a secret from Doyoung and the others?”

“Yes and yes. Drink?” Johnny smiles like he used to and you’re instantly relieved. Still kind of panicked, but mostly relieved. You have time. He’s not in danger. You have more time. So you smile back, genuinely. 

“Yes.”

 

Yuno really should have stopped after that last shot with you and Youngho. He also really shouldn’t have sat down to play this game because he’s done everything there is to do under the sun of this Earth. 

But the energy of this place is incredible. He’s been feeding off of it since he walked in, and it’s mostly why he doesn’t mind you not joining him for this stupidity happening in a small circle in the middle of the living room. Though he also did figure you’d want some time to catch up with your old high school buddy. It’s hard to hear what you’re saying with all the chatter going off and he doesn’t care anyway. Your body language suggests you were really close, and he can’t help but respect that and give you the privacy you need. 

So odd. To treat someone with selflessness for their sake and not for personal gain. It makes him feel giddy. Like he’s drunk on emotions he hasn’t felt in decades. 

Maybe you’re not the only one letting masks drop the longer you spend time together. Maybe this is what Taeyong talks about, what happens when something that’s completely outside of mortal and immortal control suddenly envelops someone’s world and there’s nothing they can do to stop it. 

There’s no other explanation for this, the warmth he feels when you finally take a seat by him after he downs the shot that ends the game, just in time for the humans around you to bellow at his epic tolerance. Because any human would be either projectile vomiting or blacked out by now. 

It’s when the people hollering start yelling for a bonus round that you rest your chin on his shoulder. Not affectionately, just to be close enough so you can talk to him and he can actually hear you over the noise. His whole body still jolts, just for a second, and he does a quick rundown on the state of his body in the split second that you take a breath before you speak. 

His heart is okay, its rate accelerated but that’s mostly the booze. He just fed but all this alcohol is probably going to suck up a lot of the life force in him with how much work his body is going to have to put in to process all this poison. Yuno’s pretty much ruined himself for the next couple of days and will have to book an extra feeding ASAP and he wonders if it was all worth it. 

“Let’s go home.”

It was all absolutely worth it. And he’s on his feet and classily making his way out while claiming that it’s been quite enough for one night and he should really make his leave. He offers Youngho a friendly wave while you go and say a proper goodbye, surely with every intention of hanging out together again, and the minutes fly past him as you make your way down the stairs of the townhouse and out into the freezing gusty streets of the city you currently call home. 

The cold is like a slap in the face to both of you, in the best way possible. It kickstarts the entirety of your body, and you regain tension in the right places and manage to relax in others. Mainly your eyes and your hearing, it’s so much better not having to focus on faces and conversations, and you both find you don’t need to initiate anything as you begin to walk in the direction of your campus. 

“I never asked, do you live on campus?”

“Why, do you want to come over?”

You sigh, but you’re smiling. “I’m going to drop you off. I don’t know if you can tell, but you’re wasted.”

“I’m not wasted,” he knows his voice is a little thin and that his words are slurred, but it could be way worse. He’s still waking straight, he can still see pretty clearly and he has enough of an attention span that he can still keep up with the sensory charges hitting him from all angles right now. “Do you like singing? I could totally go for karaoke right now.”

You snort, he’s kind of cute when he’s drunk. Maybe you’ll pry a little now. “It’s 1AM, Yuno.”

“The night is young, and so are we,” he opens his arms and moves a few paces ahead of you so he can spin twice. “Let’s go sing some fucking Jeff Bernat.”

A full laugh escapes you this time. “Didn’t peg you for a Bernat kind of guy.”

“Great baritones support other great baritones.”

“So you’re a great one, huh.” 

He turns to face you, though he doesn’t stop walking, and neither do you. “Pretty good,” he says, and every time he blinks it takes him an inordinately long amount of time to open his eyes again, “I sang sold-out shows at some opera houses in my youth.”

“You talk like that was so long ago.”

“It was,” he turns back around and his pace slows to match yours, “I never let myself get rusty, but I kind of outlived the lifestyle of a singer.”

“So you decided to switch to… another kind of performer?” your humour isn’t lost on him, and he chuckles at your words like he just realised his biggest passion always shines through regardless of what he’s doing and when he’s doing it. 

So he doesn’t answer. Rather, he flips the hood of his coat over his head and tucks himself into the down and fur, well enough for you to only be able to see a sliver of him. 

“I started out as a medical student, you know,” he says, a clear air of pride in his voice, “it really was my dream as a kid.” The small sigh he heaves at the end of his sentence makes you a little uneasy. 

“Why medicine?”

“I felt responsible.”

You’d ask further, but you already have an idea of why he would pursue a path like that, despite his aptitudes laying elsewhere. 

“What changed?”

Yuno smiles. What did change?

You couldn’t help but smile. Being what he is, you didn’t expect him to be so… caring. For a people that weren’t his own. The way he spoke made his words heavy, like the fate of all humanity really hung on his shoulders and he at one point thought medicine was the path the fates had designed for him, but— 

“I also felt like art was a cure. The kind of cure we don’t look for, but instead finds us.” 

“Oho,” he’s kind of admirable in his own way, you really do have to give him credit, “I see you have chops for poetry as well.”

“I’m kind of perfect,” he adds, and you can’t help but laugh, fully and unreservedly, as you continue to walk along the dark, chilly streets. 

“Sing us a few bars then, Mr. Jung, won’t you?” you look over at him and can’t help finding him more endearing by the second. Especially when you notice what little you can see of his complexion is bright pink, his dimples pretty much soup ladles with how hard he’s smiling. 

“I’m shy〜”

“Shy? You get shy?” you prod, even though you’re sure something inside you just burst and it’s kind of gross how cute this all is. “Who are you and where is the inflated asshat that wrote my score?”

“I’m right here,” he mumbles, “I’m just … a little tipsy.” He kicks the air like he’s five and pockets his hands in his coat and you watch him for a minute or two before the vibe you’re sharing really hits you. 

“Did you have fun?” you can’t believe how timid he sounds, a fraction of the guy you met a few days ago. And it’s like the notion of time hits him, like he, too, realises that you barely even know each other and yet you’ve gone all this way. 

He even moves his gaze from your eyes to the ground when you catch it, and you almost snort. “Yeah,” you say, both confidently and reassuringly, “I don’t usually go out to these parties but I had fun. I wouldn’t mind wasting time like that every now and then.”

He then goes quiet, which prompts you to look over at him again. The wind knocks the hood of his coat back and he immediately moves to cover the tips of his ears with some of his hair. He lets out a breathy laugh as he stands just an inch closer to you as you walk on. 

“So will you say yes if I ask you out again?” he looks to your side profile and doesn’t catch himself before he gazes a bit more intently than he should. And he thinks your own ears might be burning the slightest shade of pink before you heave a sigh through a smile and turn to meet his stare. 

Turns out, you’re pretty tired of playing chase here. “Maybe.”

Yuno chuckles. “I don’t know what to do when you don’t reject me,” he says honestly, and you laugh yourself. 

“Would you rather I did?”

“Don’t play with my heart when I’m drunk.”

“Maybe you sing me some bars off of Moondance,” you look over when he laughs, “I’ll say yes.” 

“It shouldn’t be this hard to score a second date.”

“I don’t think we’ve had the first one,” and you kind of feel guilty that you spent probably a total of ten combined minutes actually speaking to him tonight. 

The way he looks at you just then kind of makes time stop. Something flashes in his eyes, something caught between surprise, delight and a tinge of fear and you don’t know how you recognise it all, but it doesn’t… discourage you. It just entices that dangerous curiosity you really should be more wary of. 

Barely two conversations and yet it feels like much longer. The time apart feels so minuscule compared to the time shared, and the realisation hits Yuno like a ton of bricks. But… 

“Karaoke at 1AM would be a pretty epic first date.”

He really can’t bear to let this go just yet.


End file.
